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Friday, January 29, 2016

"After
bossa nova and Tropicália, there was a strong northeastern movement. It didn't
have a name, but I think it was as important."—Geraldo Azevedo

Geraldo Azevedo, like his colleague Alceu Valença, was part
of the "northeastern wave" that enriched MPB in the 1970s. Azevedo—a
singer, songwriter and guitarist—interprets regional styles with a bossa nova
sensibility and sophistication. His light, clear songs center on his voice and
guitar, often acoustic. Geraldo's lyrics evoke earthy romantic love and the
beaches, jangadas, and coconut
trees of the northeastern coast.

Geraldo
Azevedo de Amorim was born on January 11, 1945 in Petrolina, Pernambuco, on the
banks of the São Francisco River. Geraldo grew up in a musical household where
everyone played instruments or sang. "The folklore of the region—maracatu,
coco, repentistas—it's in all of us without our perceiving it," Azevedo
told me.He was a self-taught
musician and started playing the guitar at age twelve. As a teenager, he
listened to Luiz Gonzaga and Jackson do Pandeiro, as well as such diverse
musicians as Johann Sebastian Bach, classical guitarist Andrés Segovia, bossa
guitarist Baden Powell, and romantic crooner Nelson Gonçalves. But it was the
bossa nova singer João Gilberto who inspired Geraldo to become a professional
musician. "He made me more serious about looking into harmony. We didn't
have those [bossa nova] harmonies in Petrolina."

He
began playing with the group Sambossa as a teenager and at eighteen he traveled
to Recife to attend college. While there he joined Grupo Construção, which
included percussionist Naná Vasconcelos, singer Teca Calazans, and two future
members of Quinteto Violado – Toinho Alves (bass) and Marcelo Melo (guitar).

Geraldo Azevedo, "Moça Bonita"

In
1967, Azevedo moved to Rio and formed the group Quarteto Livre (Free Quartet)
with Vasconcelos, guitarist Nelson Ângelo, and flutist Franklin da Flauta
(Franklin Correa da Silva Neto). They accompanied singer-songwriter Geraldo
Vandré in various shows and on his famed protest anthem "Pra Não Dizer Que
Não Falei de Flores" (Not to Say I Didn't Speak of Flowers"), also
known as "Caminhando," which was censored for ten years after its
debut in 1968. Vandré was a hero of the 1960s song festivals who sang protest
lyrics against social injustices and Brazil's military dictatorship. Azevedo
and Vandré wrote "Canção da Despedida" (Goodbye Song) together and
the government banned it for twelve years until it was recorded by Elba
Ramalho.
The
notorious Institutional Act No. 5 of December 13, 1968 clamped down hard on
dissent in Brazil and made it impossible for Vandré and Quarteto Livre to
record. Vandré left the country and Azevedo went to prison. Azevedo was not
politically militant, but his friendship with loudly dissenting musicians and
artists caused him to be clandestinely seized and placed under arrest in 1969.
When he came out of prison, after staying for forty-one days, he felt depressed
and beaten down and almost gave up music for good. The next year was a bleak
year for Azevedo, but near its end he re-encountered Alceu Valença, who gave
Geraldo "a force, a strong push" and helped him regain his enthusiasm
for music. The two teamed together for a while, co-writing songs (such as the
hit "78 Rotações") and entering the musical festivals together
They
made their recording debut in 1972 with the joint album Alceu Valença e Geraldo Azevedo: Quadrafônico. It had many
memorable songs, including "Talismã" (written by the two of them),
and the haunting "Novena," a toada
written by Azevedo and Marcus Vinícius. In it, Azevedo poetically evoked the
intense Catholicism of his childhood.The
two also later collaborated in the O
Grande Encontro series, but their styles are generally quite different.

"Novena" from Alceu Valença and Geraldo Azevedo's Quadrafônico

Alceu is a fiery musical alchemist who attempts to be theatrical and mythical,
and Geraldo in general is mellow and down to earth. Valença fuses northeastern
styles with rock and blues, while Azevedo mixes the region's idioms with bossa
nova harmonies and vocal influences and the occasional light pop touch. Both
often favor the northeastern xote
rhythm, which has an affinity with reggae. Azevedo's lilting "Taxi
Lunar" (co-written with Valença and Zé Ramalho) and tender "Moça
Bonita" are based in xote; and his "Petrolina e Juazeiro,"
written with Moraes Moreira, and "Dona da Minha Cabeça" mix xote with
reggae.

Azevedo
placed songs on numerous television novelas over the next few years, which
brought him a great deal of attention. In 1977, he released his first solo LP, Geraldo Azevedo, which had the evocative
Azevedo-Valença tune "Caravana" (Caravan); it was included on the
soundtrack for the Gabriela TV
novela.
After
that, Azevedo recorded albums such as Bicho
de Sete Cabeças (Seven-Headed Animal), De
Outra Maneira (Another Way), and Eterno
Presente (Eternal Present).

Geraldo Azevedo, "Caravana"

Other hits include "Dia Branco"
(White Day), "Arraial
dos Tucanos" (used by the series Sítio
do Pica-pau Amarelo), "Juritis e Borboletas," "Barcarola do
Rio São Francisco," "Chorando e Cantando" (Crying and Singing),
and "Talvez Seja Real" (It Might Be Real). His 1981 album Inclinações
Musicais (Musical
Inclinations) with arrangements by Dori Caymmi and the participation of Sivuca
and Jackson do Pandeiro, included his signature song "Moça
Bonita."

Beautiful
girl, your kiss can

Kill
me without compassion

I
don't know if it's so

Or
it's pure imagination

To
find out, you give me

This
assassin kiss

As
I lie in your woman's arms

In 1984, Azevedo traveled with the late Tancredo Neves,
participating in the Direitas movement for democratic presidential elections in
Brazil. That same year, he was part of the group show Cantoria with Elomar,
Vital Farias and Xangai, a great showcase of northeastern musical traditions
from four of the region's finest musicians. The show resulted in the Cantoria I album, which was followed by Cantoria II four years later.

Alceu Valença, Elba Ramalho, Geraldo

Azevedo and Zé Ramalho's O Grande Encontro

In 1985,
he released the acoustic A Luz do Solo,
which is a great retrospective of his standards up to that point. In the next
decade, he joined Alceu Valença, Elba Ramalho, and Zé Ramalho for the three
well-received O Grande Encontro
albums, between 1996 and 2000. Salve São
Francisco (Save the San Francisco), released in 2010, is a thematic album
devoted to the great San Francisco River, which Geraldo grew up beside and
which is under threat today from dams and diversions of its water.

I interviewed Azevedo at the BMG/Ariola recording studio in Copacabana, when he was laying down vocal and guitar tracks
for "Bossa Tropical," the title song for an upcoming album. Azevedo was
dressed in a green and purple sweatshirt and chewing ginger root because of
a bad cold. He was very friendly and relaxed.

Chris: What have you been up to?

Geraldo: I've
been traveling a lot internationally. In February 1990, I have a show in Paris.

Chris: You have a
growing audience in Europe.

Geraldo: I did the Montreux Jazz
Festival in 1985 and it was very well received. I played with Djavan and Tania
Maria, who were better known, but I did very well.

Chris: You have a
unique fusion of northeastern music with many other types of music. What
musical elements are in your songs?

Geraldo: My work
has a lot of mixing. On the new album, for example, there's a song called
"Sexo Vinte," a pun on seculo
vinte (20th century). It is a mix of xote, which is very related
to reggae, and the Beatles. "Talismã" perhaps originated from the
Gypsies. The songs are inspired and you don't always know what the influences
are.

Chris: Did you have a musical childhood?

Geraldo: In my
house, music was always naturally a part of things. My mother sings
marvelously. My father plays guitar. My brothers all play music. In school, I
always sang at the different parties and festivals. I couldn't enter the
university because I always had shows that interfered with my taking the
entrance exam.

Chris: What were some of your biggest influences?

Geraldo: Bossa
nova and João Gilberto. João Gilberto made me turn professional. He made me
more serious about looking into harmony. We didn't have those [bossa nova]
harmonies in Petrolina. Also [Dorival] Caymmi, Milton [Nascimento], Jobim,
jazz. The Northeast is so much a part of me – Jackson do Pandeiro and Luiz
Gonzaga. The folklore of the region—maracatú, coco, repentistas—is in all of us
without our perceiving it, instinctively. Later, I turned to jazz, the Beatles.

Chris: You
recorded your first album with Alceu Valença, but you had already been in Rio
awhile. How did you career start once you got down there?

Geraldo: I came to Rio before Alceu.
I played with Quarteto Livre, with Naná Vasconcelos and others. We never
recorded an album.

Chris: The military
essentially broke up the group and sent Vandré into exile and you into prison.
You also couldn't record "Canção da Despedida," written with Vandré,
until much later.

Geraldo: My song
"Canção da Despedida" was censored for a long time. At that time, artists
were suffocated. There was cultural chaos. People had to leave the country.

Chris: And you
were thrown into jail.

Geraldo: I was
imprisoned twice. In 1969 for forty-one days and in 1975 for eleven days. The
first time in prison, I was very depressed and beaten down. But I was young and
I could recover.

Chris: Alceu
Valença helped you get back into music.

Geraldo: Alceu
met me in Rio. Alceu gave me a force, a strong push. It was a new musical
movement. I recorded my first record, Alceu Valença and Geraldo Azevedo, in 1971 [it was released the
next year].

Chris: What happened the second time the military imprisoned you?

Geraldo: The
second time, six years later, was more violent. I was blindfolded, tortured. My
jailers asked me to play for them, but I refused. I wasn't going to play for my
torturers. I was never tried. My work didn't have political connotations.It was humanistic, more to the positive
than to the nihilistic, and more to the constructive than the destructive. But
any person looking into cultural and humanistic subjects was persecuted. Some
people died innocently. But, happily, I came through all that. The second time,
I had a very strong spirit, and I left feeling strong, even though my time in
jail was very violent. After I left I decided I would become famous and I
accelerated my work and recorded my first solo album, Geraldo Azevedo, for Som Livre in 1976. Ironically, [President]
Geisel took my album to Germany as being representative of Brazilian culture.

Chris: What do
you think was the impact of the dictatorship and the repression on Brazilian
music?

Geraldo: I think
the dictatorship interrupted a Brazilian cultural cycle and we still haven't
managed to recover. We are still asleep. I think my success has come about
because people sense something more profund and poetic in my music. They have a
lack of cultural inheritance. Rock is empty, alienated. The system presents
alienated music, with the exception of some artists like Cazuza, Lobão, and
Renato Russo.

Chris: There was
exceptional music, by Geraldo Vandré, Edu Lobo, Chico Buarque and so many
others, presented at the great Brazilian music festivals of the 1960s. And then
the military dictatorship stepped in and censored a lot of it.

Geraldo: At the
festivals, there came out such a force. We don't have this now. I think we'll
never recover what we lost, but we can have a new movement with much sweat and
heart.

Chris: You are
one who survived, and have large following, even though you have released a
relatively small number of albums in your four-decade career.

Geraldo: Today I
have a bigger public, especially in the Northeast. Now I select and choose what
I want to do. I'm not so worried about TV appearances, etc. I tried to do a
real commercial album with Mazzola. PolyGram wanted me to do that, and it was
completely unsuccessful and is no longer in the catalog. So, I have to do it
from my heart.

Chris: The music
that was created by you and Alceu Valença and your peers from the Northeast was
a really vital part of MPB.

Geraldo: After
bossa nova and Tropicália, there was a strong northeastern movement. It didn't
have a name, but I think it was as important. Alceu, myself, Zé Ramalho,
Belchior, Elba Ramalho, Fagner, and others.

Chris: Did you
ever imagine being where you are today and having such a long and successful career?

Geraldo: I never thought about being
a musician. Music just carried me away.

Thursday, January 28, 2016

"[Brazilian
musicians] are more open and are into listening to all kinds of music. They are
positive about their own style. It just matters if the track is happening, if
the musicians are burning."—Rique Pantoja

Rique Pantoja's diverse musical life has had several distinct
stages. He has been a novice jazz musician touring Europe with an old legend
(Chet Baker), co-founder of an acclaimed Brazilian jazz fusion band (Cama de
Gato), an in-demand studio keyboardist and arranger in Brazil; and, most
recently, a composer, performer and college music professor based in Los
Angeles.

Paulo
Henrique Pantoja Leite was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1955. Following high
school, he studied from 1977-1979 at the prestigious Berklee School of Music in
Boston, where Brazilian guitarist Ricardo Silveira and drummer Pascoal
Meirelles were classmates. After that, Pantoja lived in Europe and played
professionally with a group called Novos Tempos (New Times). In Paris, the
young keyboardist made the acquaintance of famed American jazz trumpet-player
and vocalist Chet Baker (1929-1988).
He toured Europe and recorded with Baker
in the early '80s. The musical relationship of the two was an illustration of
the back-and-forth that has gone on between Brazilian music and jazz since the
1950s. Baker sang in a smooth, soft, laid back voice with no vibrato and was an
influence on João Gilberto and other key figures in bossa nova. Decades later,
Pantoja, who had grown absorbing bossa nova as a teenager in Rio, found himself
performing and recording with Baker. The latter recorded six of Rique's
compositions on Chet Baker & The Boto
Brazilian Quartet, and interpreted several Pantoja pieces on Rique Pantoja & Chet Baker.

In
Brazil, Rique formed the instrumental quartet Cama de Gato with Pascoal
Meirelles (drums), Mauro Senise (saxophone) and Arthur Maia (bass) in 1982.
They mixed a jazz-fusion sensibility with Brazilian rhythms. With Pantoja, the
group released the albums Cama de
Gato (1986), Guerra Fria (1988),
and Sambaíba (1990) for the Som da
Gente label. Their albums sold extremely well for instrumental music in Brazil
and they performed in Europe as well as New York's Town Hall. Maia, who didn't
study music in Boston with Pantoja and Meirelles, playfully titled one of their
tunes "Por Que Não Fui à Berklee?" (Why Didn't I Go to Berklee?).
Pantoja left the band in 1991 and was replaced by Jota Moraes. Cama de Gato has
continued until today with differing lineups. They still record Rique's
compositions.

The back cover of Cama de Gato's debut album

During
his time with Cama de Gato, Pantoja was in great demand as a studio
keyboardist, and appeared on albums in the '80s and early '90s by a wide array
of Brazilian artists, including Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa, Ricardo Silveira,
Robertinho Silva, Torcuato Mariano, Tim Maia, Marina, Raphael Rabello, Raimundo
Fagner, Alcione, Wagner Tiso, Paulinho da Viola, Joanna, Eduardo Dusek, and
Raul Mascarenhas. He played keyboards on a landmark rock song, Barao Vermelho's
Bete Balanço" (1984), a huge hit for the band and their lead singer
Cazuza. Pantoja played on five songs on Milton Nascimento's Yauaretê, launched internationally by
Columbia in 1987.

Along
the way, Pantoja also released several solo albums, including Rique Pantoja featuring Ernie Watts, and
De La Pra Ca, which featured Watts,
Silveira, Lee Ritenour and Don Grusin.

In
July 1991, Pantoja moved from Rio permanently to Los Angeles. He had begun a
spiritual transformation three years earlier while in Rio, and in the '90s he
began to focus more of his efforts on Christian music. He has recorded or
performed since then with Christian music artists Tommy Walker, Helen Baylor,
Israel Houghton, Bebe Winans, Bob Darlene Zschech, Toomy Coomes, Bill Batstone,
Annie Barbour, Linda McCrary, Bené Gomes, Bob Fitts, Kirk Whalum, and Kim
Pauley. He also has performed for many years in the band at the Christian
Assembly church in Eagle Rock, a neighborhood in northeastern Los Angeles.

In
recent years, he has worked in commercials and soundtracks; he was the composer, arranger
and keyboardist for the song "By the Sea" for the movie Jungle 2 Jungle (1997). He has released
Christian-themed albums such as Night
Prayer: Oração da Noite with Tommy Walker (2005), and appeared on works
like vocalist Zoe Theodorou's The Essence
of Life (2005), for which he was the keyboardist and arranger. His and Theodorou's
song "I
Believed It" from that album won Canada's Covenant Award for Jazz/Blues
Song of the Year.

He
has also led his own instrumental group, the Rique Pantoja Quartet, which in
2011 performed in eight cities in Russia, among other gigs. Pantoja now
teaches music as well, most recently at Biola University and LAMP (the Los
Angeles School of Music and Performance), in Southern California.

The profile above was written recently, while the interview below took place in 1989 as Pantoja's solo recording career was taking off.

Chris: You appeared on a couple of guitarist Ricardo Silveira's albums. And the
two of you have played as studio musicians for many of the same people, such as
Milton Nascimento.

Rique: Ricardo
Silveira and I used to live together; we both studied at Berklee.

Chris: Do you
think you guys were "Americanized" at all by studying there?

I got turned on to [bossa] when I was 15. [There were great]
instrumental players like Tamba Trio, with Luis Eça. Manfredo Fest was a great
player.

Chris: Before
Cama de Gato, at the start of the '80s you were playing in Europe with Chet
Baker. How did that come about?

Rique: When I
lived in Rome and Paris, I was playing with Novos Tempos. We were Brazilian and
French musicians. We were all over Paris, and used to play seven nights a week.
That's how we met Chet Baker. He was playing in a club next door, and he came
over to watch us. He sat in and really liked the music. He had a producer, Yves
Chamberland, and he wanted to make a record with us. We invited Chet to be part
of the project and it actually became Chet's record [Chet Baker and the Boto Brazilian Quartet, recorded in 1980].

The back cover of Rique Pantoja and Chet Baker

Chris: Did you
enjoy playing with Baker? It must have been a thrill for a young musician.

Rique: It was a
great experience playing with him. After that [record], he called me from Rome
and said, 'let's go on the road.' So we started doing an island off Naples,
then Naples, Sicily, Milan, many places. Chet influenced a lot of people.
Caetano [Veloso] told me he used to listen so much to Chet Baker. João Gilberto
listened to him. An influence from that cool kind of singing.

Chet Baker performing Pantoja's "Arborway"

Chris: What about
his heroin addiction? Was he using while you were playing with him?

Rique: Sometimes
it was hard. He would go back into the drugs. It was a sad thing. But his music
had such a strong heart. If I had to show him a tune and ask him what he thought,
he would close his eyes [and listen]. He didn't listen to music and talk [at
the same time]. Then he would tune back into the planet. He was a very nice,
sweet person—from somewhere else.

Chet Baker performing Pantoja's "So Hard to Know"

Chris: Was he a mentor for you?

Rique: I
definitely have been influenced by him. I learned from him. He would tell me
little concepts and things about improvisation. I remember once he was telling
me that for him, improvisation should always start with a melody a little kid
could sing. You can burn and play fast, but it should start with simple motifs
and build up from there. There were a lot of good things like that and, also,
lots of sad moments.

Chris: Can you talk about your other jazz and pop influences?

Rique: I love
jazz music. I listened to Gil Evans and Herbie Hancock, and at the same time
grew up singing Beatles tunes, James Taylor, Carol King, Stevie Wonder, Leon
Russell.

Chris: And Jobim?

Rique: I listened
to Jobim, Satie, Debussy, Ravel. My father used to play a lot of that. I loved
those harmonies.

Chris: How would
you classify the types of songs that you write for your solo albums?

Rique: One side
of my compositions is really pop or romantic. I try to keep the two repertoires
separate. My solo work is more pop, maybe easier to listen to than Cama de
Gato. My solo work is hard for me to label. I wrote a lot of ballads.

Chris: What about for the group?

Rique: I wrote
most of the stuff for Cama de Gato. We're more on the jazz side, but we play
maracatus, samba, baião. The rhythms are more Brazilian, but with modern,
avant-garde harmonies, dissonant.

Cama de Gato performing Pantoja's "Pé de Moleque"

Chris: You guys
were well received when you played in the U.S. recently.

Rique: We got a
standing ovation at New York Town Hall concerts.

Chris: Why do you
think Brazilian music has been so well received recently in the United States?
You, Ricardo Silveira, Milton Nascimento, Djavan, Ivan Lins and many others
have been releasing albums in North America.

Rique: I think
what we [my generation] have to offer is fresh music, not trying to compare or
judge. I think music has been too pasteurized, the patterns are cliché. And
Brazilian music has such a strong vitality. It's like a fresh fountain and
people have been drinking there. Pat Metheny gets a lot of ideas from Toninho
Horta or Milton Nascimento. And there's Dave Grusin, Al Jarreau [who have also
been influenced by it].

Chris: Do you
think Americans or Europeans can hear the difference between what you do and
what some U.S. jazz fusion bands play?

Rique: I played
at Jazzmania [a club in Rio]. Americans sometimes come up and say they think
the music kind of sounds like Al Jarreau or Spyro Gyra. But it isn't the same
as their music.

Chris: And it's
complicated because a lot of the North American groups have been influenced by
Brazilian music. American music, from rock to jazz, has always absorbed rhythms
and styles from elsewhere.

Rique: We
[Brazilian musicians] don't have the structure to get the music out there. Our
[marketing] is very primitive in a way. Pat Metheny or other big names sell
thousands or millions of records. People relate to those tunes more. People
don't know who Toninho Horta is, who had a big influence on Pat Metheny's
music, but they know who Pat Metheny is. So if Toninho came here [to the U.S.],
they would probably say, "Hey he sounds like Pat Metheny."

Chris: A lot of
jazz musicians, like Metheny and his partner Lyle Mays, have acknowledged the
influence of Brazilian music on their work. But the average listener doesn't
know that.

Rique: Brazil is
still known for Carnival, samba, but it's not just that. It's so rich. There
are so many fusions we can get. I think we [Brazilians] have a lot to give to
music in general. The speed of information is so fast now. People relate to music
from all over the planet. Pretty soon it will be hard to say this is typically
Brazilian. The new streams are tied to each other. Soon it will just be
tendencies. 'This has a salsa flavor with Brazilian harmonies,' as an example.

Cama de Gato performs Pantoja's "Melancia"

Chris: Does your
music have any similarities with any of your contemporaries, likeRicardo Silveira or Marcos Ariel?

Rique: Each has a
different approach, a different way. Marcos is very Brazilian, more [steeped]
in tradition. He plays choros. Very rich, fresh. Ricardo's approach is more
that of a guitar player. I also compose there [with a guitar], but my main
thing is the piano. The voice element in my music is really strong as well. I
did vocalese with Cama de Gato and on my first solo album [on "Lua
Nova"]. I like to use the voice as an instrument, doubling on soprano sax,
going to more of a head tone in singing. I learned from playing jazz, listening
to a lot of things. It's a different way of doing it, my own way.

Chris: It's hard
for jazz and instrumental musicians to compete with rock, in any country.

Rique: Nothing
sells like that [rock].

Chris: It's
always been tough for instrumental musicians, even in the bossa nova days.

Rique: A lot of
musicians from that generation became hardened. Bossa nova was a type of music that
kind of got lost when the Beatles and Roberto Carlos came. They had to go back
to nightclubs, piano bars, things like that. It's sad because many of them are
still great musicians. There is a new breed of musicians from Brazil now.
People are more open and are into listening to all kinds of music. They are
positive about their own style. It just matters if the track is happening, if
the musicians are burning.

About Me

I'm the author of "The Brazilian Music Book," a collection of interviews with iconic Brazilian musicians, and co-author of "The Brazilian Sound: Samba, Bossa Nova and the Popular Music of Brazil" (Temple University Press). I have contributed blogs and articles about music, culture, and the environment to The Huffington Post, Billboard and many other publications. I have also worked on Portuguese/English translations for academics, government agencies and major corporations. I can be reached at the email here and at LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrismcgowan.